By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder says he broke his arm and had surgery on it a mere 12 weeks before his fight with Tyson Fury, and that he had hardly used his right arm during training for the fight, according to Michael Benson. This might explain why Wilder wasn’t teeing off on Fury with his right hand like many boxing fans had expected him to going into the fight.
The normal snap that Wilder had on his punches wasn’t there like it normally is. As most people know, Wilder’s right hand is his bread and butter. Without his right arm at 100% full strength, Wilder wasn’t the same guy.
Despite having his right arm broken and using it little in training camp, Wilder was still able to to a 12 round split draw against Fury. The judges scored it 115-111 for Wilder, 114-112 for Fury and 113-113.
Even before this sad news about Wilder having an arm injury before camp, there was a lot of boxing cans complaining about the count that was given to Fury after he was knocked down in the 12th. Some fans think that referee Jack Reiss gave Fury a long count. Fury barely beat the count, but it looked to some that he was given extra time to get up. What’s shocking is that there was any count at all given by Reiss. Fury was down flat on his back with both eyes closed for several seconds after getting hit with a right-left combination from Wilder.
“12 weeks before the camp I broke my hand. You know, I don’t make excuses. People don’t know these things,” Wilder said to SiriusXM Boxing. “I broke my right hand 12 weeks before the camp so even in camp I barely would throw my right hand in camp. You can ask all my sparring partners. I was barely throwing the right hand. That could’ve been another reason of why I was so off as well, too.”
So there it is. Wilder had a broken hand BEFORE he started training camp for the Fury fight. The injury limited Wilder’s ability to use his right hand during the camp. In hindsight, Wilder probably should have postponed the Fury fight until the first quarter of 2019. That would have made a heck of a lot more sense than going into the match at less than 100%
If you look at that knockdown and compare it to the many fights that have been stopped immediately when a fighter is in a similar state, it’s peculiar that the match wasn’t stopped on the spot instead of Reiss standing over a motionless Fury, who had both eyes closed and looked unconscious. You don’t see that too often in this era of boxing. You hate to say it, but Fury got a lucky break with the referee waiting until he regained his senses.
One hates to take credit away from Fury from his job well done in extending a talent like Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs), but with this news, it’s hard to give him him the kudos that you would normally have given him.
Wilder says he wants to get Fury back into the ring to settle the score with him while there’s still interest in their fight.
“I would love the rematch again to end the score once and for all, to ease people’s minds of this worldwide controversial conversation.,” Wilder said to Sirius/XMb “Who really won? I want to settle the score while the iron’s hot on it.”
It’s important that Wilder and Fury fight a second time so that the controversy over the result of last Saturday’s fight can be settled once and for all. Wilder wants to prove that he’s the better man of the two. It would be pointless for them to go their separate ways without a clear winner being picked by the judges, who did an admirable job of trying to make sense out of this confusing fight. It was one of those types of fights where it’s difficult for the judges to decipher who won the rounds. The judges were faced with the question each round whether they should give it to Wilder for landing the harder, cleaner landing shots or give it to Fury due to his defensive work in making Deontay miss.
The rematch could be a much different story than the first fight if Wilder’s main weapon his arsenal, his right hand, is 100%, and ready for him to fire shots with maximum punching power. It’s disturbing that Wilder wasn’t able to use his right arm during training camp. That might explain why in training video of Wilder working out with Malik Scott, he wasn’t hitting him with shots. Wilder was just following Scott around the ring, working on cutting off the ring on him but not throwing his right hand. When you put the pieces together, it looks like Wilder might have been holding back on purpose during camp.
As you can tell, Wilder, 32, is being very kind to Fury by not telling the world that he should have been given the decision by all three judges last Saturday night in their fight on SHOWTIME PPV at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Fury has been talking nonstop about how he deserved the win, and how Wilder was given a gift decision by the judges on the night. Fury’s constant bellyaching about the decision has than a few boxing fans calling him a poor sport. The judges have their jobs to do, and the fighters need to respect their hard work instead of questioning them. When the day comes that fighters are able to judge their fights and have a say in the outcome, then it’ll be okay for them to complain, but the fact of the matter is the judges are the ones that make decisions in the sport of boxing. Fury just needs to realize that and try and improve the next go round. He can start by staying on his feet. Getting dropped twice by Wilder in rounds 9 and 12 isn’t a good way to go about winning a fight.
Wilder is still shocked that the referee didn’t stop the fight on the spot in the 12th round. He thought there was no way that Fury was going to be able to get up from the knockdown to continue fight, and that’s why Wilder turned around and started celebrating while looking away from his badly stunned opponent. It shock to a lot of boxing fans when the referee didn’t stop the fight and instead administering a count to a fighter that had his eyes closed. You just don’t see that very often anymore. In movies you see a referee giving a count to a fighter that has his eyes closed on the canvas, but rarely in real life nowadays.
“I really thought I had him out of there, because I hit him with a right hand and followed with the left hook,” Wilder said in recalling his 12th round knockdown of Fury. “And, you know, everyone knows I have heavy hands and I hit hard and I literally seen this man’s eyes roll in the back of his head. When I seen Jack [Reiss] on the ground with him, you know, checking him, I’m like ‘it’s over.’ And only God knows how he got back up,” Wilder said.
With all the time that Fury had to recover, it’s understandable why he was able to get back to his feet and stumble around for the remainder of the round. But the remainder of the round clearly is still foggy in Fury’s mind, as he said after the fight that he had Wilder hurt in the last part of the 12th and that he did enough to win the round. That was more than a little hard to believe. Fury sounded like his memory of the 12th wasn’t there after the fight. Fury didn’t win the 12th round obviously, and he definitely didn’t hurt Wilder. Fury might have hurt Wilder’s feelings by getting back up and getting out of the round, but he didn’t hurt him at any time.